Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-12-23
TALMAGE'S SERMON,
The Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: s'TOO Much Ado About
Small Things"

TEXT: aye blind guides, tchich strain at
O Gndt and sOdllOIo q camelm-Matt xiii,
A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge
IN chunks, library in sentence, the cleo
tlclty OF many clouds discharged in one bolt,
a river put through mill race When Christ
quotes the proverb of the text He means to
set forth the ludicrous behavior of those who
make great bluster about small sins and
have no appreciation of great ones.
In my text small insect and a large quad
ruped are brought into comparison-a gnat
and camel. You have in museum or on the
desert seen the latter, a great awkward,
Sprawling creature, with back two stories
high, and stomach having a collection of
reservoirs for desert travel an an NAL for
bldden to the Jews as food, and in many
ilteratures entitled "the ship of the desert"
The guat spoken of in the text is in the grub
form. 1t is born in pool or pond, after few
weeks becomes chrysalis, and then after a
few days becomes the gnat as we recognize
u le Is In Its smallest shape, and yet inhabits
the water--tor my text is a misprint, and
ought to read, strain out gnatn
MY text shows you the Prince of inconsis-
tencies. A man after long obServat on has
formed the suspicion that in a cup Of water
he is about to drink there is a grub or the
grand parent of gnat. He goes and gets a
sieve Or stTainer. Re takes the water and
CourS it through the sieve in the broad light
He says: Il would rather do anything almost
than drink this water until this larva he eK-
tirpated." This water is brought under in
QUESTION. The experiment is successful The
water rusheS through the sieve and leaves
against the side Of the sieve the grub or gnat
Then the man carefully removes the insect
ana drinks the water in pacidity. But going
out one day, and hungry, he devours ''ship
of the desert" the camel, which the Jews
We're Forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has
10 coHpunctlonS OF conscience. He suffers
from no indigestion. He puts the lower Jaw
under the camel's fore foot, and his upper
Jaw over the hump of the camels back, and
gives one swallow and the dromedary disap
pears forever. He strained out a gnat he
swallowed a camel.
While Christs audience were yet smiling at
the appoS teneSS and wit of his illustration
for smile they did in church unless thev were
too stupid to understand tha hyperbo!e-
Christ practically said TO them: That is
you Punctilous about small things; reck-
less about affairs Of great magnitude. No
subject ever withered under surgeons knife
more bitterly than did the Pharisees under
Christs scalpel of truth. AS an anatomist
will take human body to pieces and put
them under microscope for examination, so
Christ finds His way to the heart of the dead
Pharsee and cuts it out and puts it under the
glass OF inspection for all generations to ex-
anime, Those Pharisees thought that Christ
NOuiu llutUtI bEtIl ana cOmDnmeDC them.
and how they must have writhed under the
redhot words as he said; rye FOOLS We whited
sepulchres ye blind guides, which strain out
gnnt and swallow cameln
There are in our day a great many gnats
strained ont and great many camels swal-
lowed, and it is ths object of this sermon to
sketch few persons who are extensively en-
gagged i'll that business.
First. l remark that all those ministers of
the Gospel are photographed in tho text who
are very scrupulous about the conventionai-
ties OF religion, but put no particular stress
upon matters of vast importance. Church
services ought to be grave and solemn. There
is no room for frivolity in religious couvoca-
tion. But there are illustrations and there
are hyperboles like that of Christ In the text
that will irradiate with smiles any intelG-
gent auditory. There are men like those blind
guides of the text who advocate only those
things i'll religious service which draw the
corners OF the mouth down, and denounce all
these things which have tendency to draw
the corners of the mouth up, and these men
VIII go 10 installations and to preSbyteries
ana to conferences and to associations their
pockets full of fine Sieyes to strain out the
gnats, while In their own churches at home
every Sunday there are fifty people sound
asleep They make their churches a great
dormtory, and their sonnigerous sermons
are cradle, and the drawled out hymns a
lullaby, while some wakcful soal in pew
with her fan keeps the flies OF unconscious
persons approximate. Now, say it is worse
to sleep in church than to smile in church.
for the latter implies at least attention.
while the former implies the Indifference of
the hearers and the stupidity of the speaker
j.. old age, or from physical infirmity, or
from long watching with the sick, drow-
siness will sometimes overpower one:
but when minister of the Gospel
LOOKS or upon, an audience and finds
healthy and intelligent people struggling with
dro"slness, 1t is time for him to give out the
doxology or pronounce the benediction. The
great fault of church services to day ia not
TOO much yivacity, but too much SOM
no!ence. The one Is an irritating gnat
that may be easily strained out; the other is
., great, sprawling and sleepy-eyed camel of
the dry desert In all our Sabbath-schools,
in all our Bible classes, in all our pulpits, we
need to brighten up our religious message
with such Chrlstlike vivacity as we find in
the text.
take down from my library the biogra-
pines OF m.nh ters and writers of past ages,
Inspired and uninspired, who have done the
most to bring souls to Jesus Christ, and |
bad that without single exception, they con:
secrate1 their wit and their humor to Christ
Elijah used it when he advised thS Baalita
as they could not make their God respond
telling them to call louler, as their God
might be sound asleep or gone a-hunting
Job used it when he said to his self-conceited
comforters: "Wisdom will die with you"
Christ not only used it in the text, but when
lie ironically complimentad the putrefied
Pharisees, saying: "The whole need not q
physician" and when by one word He de-
scribed the cunning of Herod, saying: go
ye, and tell that fox" Matthew Henry's
commentaries from thu first page to the
last coruscated with humor as summer
clouds with heat and lightning. John Bun
wrilinTs 70 aa f.1ll If thay
are OF saving truth, and there is not an aged
man here vino has ever read Pilgrims Pro-
gress" who docs not remember that while
reading it he smiled as often as he wept.
Chrysostom, George Herbert, Robert South,
John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jeremy
Taylor Rowland Hill, George G. Tinney and
all men of the past who greatly advanced
the kingdom of God consecrated their wit
and their humor to the cause Of Christ So
it has been in all the ages, and say to these
young theological students, who cluster in
these services Sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen
your wits as keen as cimeters, and then take
them into this holy war.
1t is very short bridge between a Fmile
and tear, a suspension bridge from eye to
lip, and it is soon crossed over, and a smile is
sometimes just as sacred as a tear. There is
as much religion, and think little more,
In spring morning than in a starless mid
night. Religious work without any humag
or wit in it is banquet with side OF beef,
and that raw, and no condiments. and no
dessert SUI ccee ling People will not sit down
at such banquet By all means remove all
frivolity AMI all bathos AMI all lightness aud
all vulgarity-- strain them out through the
sieve OF hoy discrimination; but, on the
other hand beware of that monster which
overshadows the Christian church to-day,
conventionality, coming up from the Great
Sahara desert OF e3cleSasticsm, having on
its back a hump of sanctimonious gloom, AMI
vehamently refuse to swallow that camel.
Oh, how particular a great many people
are about the infnitesmals while they are
quite reckless abont the magnitudes. j, What